Subliminal messages in an online environment

Luka Varga

Helena Gabrijelčič Tomc

Abstract

The paper addresses subliminal messages; more precisely, the e ect of subliminal messages on a user in an online environment. e main goals of the paper were: to research the existing work regarding subliminal messages in di erent environments, to research di erent ways and e ectiveness of subliminal messages implementation, to research the e ects of di erent types of visual subliminal messages on a user within an online environment and to present the most e ective implementation of subliminal messages within the online environment. 60 test subjects and 26 control subjects were used during the course of the research. e subjects estimated their desire to own the featured items based on the usage of website containing negative (20 test subjects), or positive (20 test subjects), or mixed subliminal messages (20 test subjects), or no subliminal messages (26 control subjects). Based on the results, it was deducted that the presence of subliminal messages a ects the desire of having specif- ic items; especially e ective were the positive subliminal messages embedded in the background of the website as the subjects in that scenario on average estimated their desire to own the items was up to almost 50 % smaller than the average estimated desire rated by control subjects which was taken as the objective rating.